Well, that was unexpected. But maybe it shouldn't have been.
It's remarkable how often the conventional wisdom turns out to be incorrect. The Common Man has noticed, more often than not in recent years, if everyone believes one thing, it is a safe bet to go the other way. This is especially true today, in the wake of the New Hampshire primary yesterday.
Pundits everywhere had predicted Barak Obama would win the state in a walk, given his recent surge in the polls and the momentum he generated from his Iowa victory. Just yesterday on Bill O'Reilly's Radio Factor, the aforementioned host and his guest, former Presidential candidate and constant xenophobe Pat Buchanan, were united in their prediction that (roughly quoting Buchanan here) "Independents will determine this primary, and two-thirds of them will vote for Obama." They speculated that this would spell trouble for John McCain, who was counting on the independent vote to carry the state for the second time in the last three presidential seasons. Most of what The Common Man had read and heard over the past few days had expressed a similar sentiment, that Obama was unstoppable and McCain was in trouble. Given how many people were writing Clinton off for dead (especially because she *gasp* showed emotion), and were worried about McCain, The Common Man should have absolutely expected their triumphs yesterday.
That said, it's not like Clinton's victory could be called in any way decisive. Clinton's rousing 39 percent of the vote garnered her 9 delegates. Obama's 37 percent netted him, wait for it, 9 delegates. Given that the conventional wisdom today is that Clinton "won", it's fitting that both candidates walk away essentially tied. At least McCain can claim 3 more delegates than Romney, his closest challenger in New Hampshire.
Anyway, the big to-dos in Iowa and New Hampshire are over now, and we can get on to the rest of the country. Next up is Michigan, a swing state in the general election, which could actually tell us something about the electability of the field. Romney, following two defeats, looks poised to win (on what is essentially home turf for him) and Edwards needs a strong finish if he's going to stick around until the primaries swing south toward the end of the month. Of course, this sounds too much to The Common Man like conventional wisdom, so who knows?
In other news, The Common Man's Common Knee is going to need reconstructive surgery. In a phone conversation this morning, The Common Man's doctor informed him that has a fully torn ACL, possible cartilage damage, and a partially torn LCL. Not fun.
Showing posts with label New Hampshire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Hampshire. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
New Hampshire and The Common Knee
Today, once again, New Hampshire will make its will known to an eager media and a largely apathetic public. It should be irrelevent, a nonevent. Yet, the second story on CNN.com today is about how McCain and Obama both won in Dixville Notch (population 75) and in Hart's Location (population 42). In Dixville, McCain won with 4 votes, while Obama won with 7. A total of 14 people voted. Now then, if 51 of the 75 residents of Dixville Notch can't get excited enough about voting for either candidate, even though their votes would be widely heralded and discussed, The Common Man wonders why the hell CNN and other major news outlets should give a damn.
Once again, The Common Man will not stoop to giving a prediction for the final result. He finds predictions droll and fears they may make him look foolish, should they go awry.
In the meantime, The Common Man will placate you with pictures of the inside of his knee, MRI'd yesterday:
By the way, if anyone out there is either a) is an orthopedist or b) knows what a healthy knee is supposed to look like could let The Common Man know if his Common ACL is torn or intact, that would be terrific.
Once again, The Common Man will not stoop to giving a prediction for the final result. He finds predictions droll and fears they may make him look foolish, should they go awry.
In the meantime, The Common Man will placate you with pictures of the inside of his knee, MRI'd yesterday:
By the way, if anyone out there is either a) is an orthopedist or b) knows what a healthy knee is supposed to look like could let The Common Man know if his Common ACL is torn or intact, that would be terrific.
Monday, January 7, 2008
One long item, and Two Quick Hits
1) Roger Clemens' appearance on 60 Minutes last night was not particularly enlightening. Most, if not all, of the relevant details had been leaked beforehand, and made his 13 minutes of denial, befuddlement, anger, and explanation with Mike Wallace anticlimactic. The Common Man, as he's explained before, tends not to get too caught up in just who did steroids, since a) no other sport is held to baseball's high standard (where are congressional hearings into Shawne Merriman?) and b) he assumes that many, many players were doing them and that virtually all of the "clean" players, executives, owners, and commissioners were morally culpable. The had knowledge of what was happening and chose to respect the "clubhouse code" of silence (something which The Common Man has learned about first-hand), which may make them popular, but doesn't make them ethical.
So far, the best take The Common Man has seen on the Clemens interview comes from ESPN.com's Rob Neyer, who writes, "If the Rocket really does want to defend himself, change the minds of a lot of people, it sure would help if he'd learned at some point to come across as something other than a spoiled, petulant millionaire who thinks he did something for baseball. Rather than the other way around." Indeed, at times Clemens does come off as a spoiled child in his interview and seems to be under the impression that for throwing a baseball 90 MPH over 25 years, he has contributed positively to society. And that, perhaps, is the saddest part of this story, that many people will agree that his performance has enhanced their worlds, and that he deserves their awe and respect for it, that he receives the benefit of the doubt, rather than the $121 million plus with which he has been compensated for playing a game.
2) New Hampshire residents make a big deal about making up their own minds and not caring how the Iowa caucuses went. But you could not find a better indication of the disproportionate effect that these states have on the public consciousness than Barak Obama's recent surge in the polling of New Hampshirites. Despite doing nothing over the past week aside from winning the Iowa caucus, Obama jumped to a 10 point lead over Clinton. Seriously, America, if you don't want outliers like Iowans and New Hampshirites determining who your next president is going to be, you need to devise a national primary day a month before the national convention. It's as simple as that.
3) In ironic news, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf is saying that recently slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is to blame for her own death, saying, "For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone -- nobody else. Responsibility is hers." There you have it. No assassination. No killers. Also, John Kennedy should not have been in a convertable. How dare Martin Luther King stand on a balcony? And Robert Kennedy had no business being in a kitchen. Ascribing blame to the victim in this case is particularly dastardly, especially since the victim cannot fight back. It's cynical and will undoubtedly undermine Musharraf's international position further (though, being unfamiliar with Pakistani internal politics, The Common Man has no idea how this will play in Rawalpindi). Still, The Common Man wonders whether Musharraf is the only man who can effectively control Pakistan right now, and worries that the elections now scheduled for February could determine the push Western Asia further into chaos for the next several years.
So far, the best take The Common Man has seen on the Clemens interview comes from ESPN.com's Rob Neyer, who writes, "If the Rocket really does want to defend himself, change the minds of a lot of people, it sure would help if he'd learned at some point to come across as something other than a spoiled, petulant millionaire who thinks he did something for baseball. Rather than the other way around." Indeed, at times Clemens does come off as a spoiled child in his interview and seems to be under the impression that for throwing a baseball 90 MPH over 25 years, he has contributed positively to society. And that, perhaps, is the saddest part of this story, that many people will agree that his performance has enhanced their worlds, and that he deserves their awe and respect for it, that he receives the benefit of the doubt, rather than the $121 million plus with which he has been compensated for playing a game.
2) New Hampshire residents make a big deal about making up their own minds and not caring how the Iowa caucuses went. But you could not find a better indication of the disproportionate effect that these states have on the public consciousness than Barak Obama's recent surge in the polling of New Hampshirites. Despite doing nothing over the past week aside from winning the Iowa caucus, Obama jumped to a 10 point lead over Clinton. Seriously, America, if you don't want outliers like Iowans and New Hampshirites determining who your next president is going to be, you need to devise a national primary day a month before the national convention. It's as simple as that.
3) In ironic news, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf is saying that recently slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is to blame for her own death, saying, "For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone -- nobody else. Responsibility is hers." There you have it. No assassination. No killers. Also, John Kennedy should not have been in a convertable. How dare Martin Luther King stand on a balcony? And Robert Kennedy had no business being in a kitchen. Ascribing blame to the victim in this case is particularly dastardly, especially since the victim cannot fight back. It's cynical and will undoubtedly undermine Musharraf's international position further (though, being unfamiliar with Pakistani internal politics, The Common Man has no idea how this will play in Rawalpindi). Still, The Common Man wonders whether Musharraf is the only man who can effectively control Pakistan right now, and worries that the elections now scheduled for February could determine the push Western Asia further into chaos for the next several years.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Ends of the Earth
It's remarkable that, every four years, the eyes of this nation are transfixed upon Iowa and New Hampshire, states that get roundly ignored every other year in America. Like many of you, The Common Man knows little about either state and would, as a service to you, list of four things that he's at least pretty sure are true about each of the nation's most disproportionately influential states.
IOWA
1) Is Minnesota's Mexico. Look, a quick comparison
Minnesota..............................................Iowa
beautiful lakes and rivers...........................corn
major league sports...................................watching corn grow
a culturally relevant metropolitan area......Des Moines
Prince.......................................................Tom Harkin
attractive, relatively affluent people............no
You tell The Common Man where you'd rather live. Frankly, Minnesota should build a border fence.
2) Grows a lot of corn. According to the Iowa Department of Agriculture, Iowa grew corn on almost 13 million acres last year, nearly 16 percent of our national crop. That's a lot.
3) Has most famous non-major league baseball field. Somewhere in Iowa, there is a field. A field of dreams. It is the baseball diamond, cut out of a field of corn for the schlocky, hokey, but ultimately entertaining film (wait for it) Field of Dreams, in which we're lied to and made to feel bad about Shoeless Joe Jackson's level of involvement in the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Recent research has demonstrated that Jackson's play was, indeed, highly suspicious, and that he likely was the reason the fix was successful (indeed, if Jackson (a team leader and its best player) hadn't gone along with the plot, the other players may have reconsidered their involvement). Still, The Common Man would like visit, especially since the owners of the field (it sat across the property line of two farms) have resolved their differences.
4) Iowans are liars. As the previous paragraph demonstrates, Iowans are likely to tell any lie, half-truth or exaggeration to get you visit their state. Why should this country respect the opinions and caucus results of a bunch of lying liars? Are they making up the results? Maybe they manipulate the final tallies to make the races interesting so that citizens are obliged to tune in every four years to a state that otherwise doesn't matter.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
1) Apparently named after an old Hampshire. What happened to the old Hampshire, New Hampshire? Did you just leave it to die somewhere, hoping your past wouldn't catch up to you? Well, it did, New Hampshire. You were named after the county of Hampshire. And where is that, New Hampshire? That's right, it's in England. First of all, if it was so great back in old Hampshire, that you named your colony (then state) after it, why did you leave in the first place. Second, naming your state after a British county? Doesn't sound very American to The Common Man.
2) No state income tax nor sales tax. This, of course, makes The Common Man wonder how the state of New Hampshire pays for anything. No wonder the Old Man in the Mountain fell apart. God, spend a buck or two, it's only the only thing people visited your state to see. (Note to Common Self, when driving to or from Maine, always stop at New Hampshire state liquor store at exit 1.)
3) Gave us Sarah Silverman. This is perhaps the greatest contribution to American culture in the state's history. It almost makes up for #4.
4) State motto, Live Free or Die, used as title of aging Bruce Willis fiasco, Live Free or Die Hard. Look, The Common Man is the first one to admit how awesome the first Die Hard was. As an action movie, it blended comedy, fighting, shooting, and realism perfectly with unmatched precision. That doesn't change the fact, however, that the second and fourth installments of Die Hard sucked hard. Sucked out loud. Sucked in stereo. Indeed, the fourth film completely eschews the realism and grittiness that made Die Hard so noteworthy among action films in the first place, instead turning Willis' John McClain into a kind of white, middle-aged, bald superhero, capable of taking down a helicopter with a motorcycle. Though to be fair, the third movie redeems the Die Hard franchise significantly, but mostly because of Samuel L. Jackson and a terrific turn by Jeremy Irons as the villain who puts Willis through a series of amusing and dangerous obstacles. Isn't that just like the British, funny and evil at the same time. Sounds like a bad group of people to name a state after, New Hampshire.
IOWA
1) Is Minnesota's Mexico. Look, a quick comparison
Minnesota..............................................Iowa
beautiful lakes and rivers...........................corn
major league sports...................................watching corn grow
a culturally relevant metropolitan area......Des Moines
Prince.......................................................Tom Harkin
attractive, relatively affluent people............no
You tell The Common Man where you'd rather live. Frankly, Minnesota should build a border fence.
2) Grows a lot of corn. According to the Iowa Department of Agriculture, Iowa grew corn on almost 13 million acres last year, nearly 16 percent of our national crop. That's a lot.
3) Has most famous non-major league baseball field. Somewhere in Iowa, there is a field. A field of dreams. It is the baseball diamond, cut out of a field of corn for the schlocky, hokey, but ultimately entertaining film (wait for it) Field of Dreams, in which we're lied to and made to feel bad about Shoeless Joe Jackson's level of involvement in the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Recent research has demonstrated that Jackson's play was, indeed, highly suspicious, and that he likely was the reason the fix was successful (indeed, if Jackson (a team leader and its best player) hadn't gone along with the plot, the other players may have reconsidered their involvement). Still, The Common Man would like visit, especially since the owners of the field (it sat across the property line of two farms) have resolved their differences.
4) Iowans are liars. As the previous paragraph demonstrates, Iowans are likely to tell any lie, half-truth or exaggeration to get you visit their state. Why should this country respect the opinions and caucus results of a bunch of lying liars? Are they making up the results? Maybe they manipulate the final tallies to make the races interesting so that citizens are obliged to tune in every four years to a state that otherwise doesn't matter.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
1) Apparently named after an old Hampshire. What happened to the old Hampshire, New Hampshire? Did you just leave it to die somewhere, hoping your past wouldn't catch up to you? Well, it did, New Hampshire. You were named after the county of Hampshire. And where is that, New Hampshire? That's right, it's in England. First of all, if it was so great back in old Hampshire, that you named your colony (then state) after it, why did you leave in the first place. Second, naming your state after a British county? Doesn't sound very American to The Common Man.
2) No state income tax nor sales tax. This, of course, makes The Common Man wonder how the state of New Hampshire pays for anything. No wonder the Old Man in the Mountain fell apart. God, spend a buck or two, it's only the only thing people visited your state to see. (Note to Common Self, when driving to or from Maine, always stop at New Hampshire state liquor store at exit 1.)
3) Gave us Sarah Silverman. This is perhaps the greatest contribution to American culture in the state's history. It almost makes up for #4.
4) State motto, Live Free or Die, used as title of aging Bruce Willis fiasco, Live Free or Die Hard. Look, The Common Man is the first one to admit how awesome the first Die Hard was. As an action movie, it blended comedy, fighting, shooting, and realism perfectly with unmatched precision. That doesn't change the fact, however, that the second and fourth installments of Die Hard sucked hard. Sucked out loud. Sucked in stereo. Indeed, the fourth film completely eschews the realism and grittiness that made Die Hard so noteworthy among action films in the first place, instead turning Willis' John McClain into a kind of white, middle-aged, bald superhero, capable of taking down a helicopter with a motorcycle. Though to be fair, the third movie redeems the Die Hard franchise significantly, but mostly because of Samuel L. Jackson and a terrific turn by Jeremy Irons as the villain who puts Willis through a series of amusing and dangerous obstacles. Isn't that just like the British, funny and evil at the same time. Sounds like a bad group of people to name a state after, New Hampshire.
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